‘Shit.’ Nat jumped back up, alarm on his face. Elektron stayed put, his face bloodied and bruised. ‘I forgot about those damn gloves of his.’
‘Uh-uh,’ said Dutch. ‘His suit won’t work here, remember?’
Nat’s eyes widened. ‘Good point.’ He pressed one boot on Elektron’s neck. ‘You hear that, dickface?’
Elektron’s eyes rolled in his head and he gurgled something inaudible. Dutch scanned the sky; she had a feeling the Kaiju wouldn’t return until after it had eaten its lunch. Nat yanked down the zip on the front of Elektron’s gizmo-riddled suit and rummaged around inside before pulling out a familiar red envelope.
Dutch snatched it from him and pulled out a sheet of rice-paper covered in Japanese calligraphy. ‘So you were working for Muto,’ said Nat, staring at Elektron with contempt.
Elektron stared back up at him with an angry scowl, his skin damp with sweat and the B.O. coming off him in waves. ‘That’s only part of it, and you damn well know why.’
‘What did you mean when you said Nat stole something from Strugatsky?’ asked Dutch.
Elektron looked between them in confusion, his domino mask askew, then. ‘You’re serious? You don’t know?’
‘Nope.’
A faltering grin caught one side of his mouth and he looked back at Nat. ‘How about it, navigator? You gonna tell her the truth?’
Dutch fired the Beretta into the road a few inches from Elektron’s head. He jerked back and regarded her with silent horror.
‘Cut the bullshit,’ she roared. ‘What did he steal?’
Elektron’s gaze shifted between them. ‘A map.’
You piece of shit, Nat. ‘One that leads past the Rift?’
Elektron nodded frantically.
Blood pulsed in her head as she turned to look at Nat. ‘Is this true?’
Nat shook his head in disgust, then turned and walked a few feet away.
A greasy smile spread across Elektron’s face. ‘Shit, he really kept you in the dark, didn’t he?’
‘There was an expedition,’ said Dutch. ‘I know that much.’
Elektron nodded. ‘Strugatsky sent a bunch of his scientists here to find what they could, except most of them disappeared.’
Dutch twitched the barrel of the Beretta towards Nat, who had turned back to regard them both. ‘I asked you if what he’s saying is true.’
Nat’s eyes grew larger. ‘Dutch—’
She steadied her aim, Elektron forgotten for the moment. ‘Tell me.’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Strugatsky sent in the expedition, not Wu.’
Dutch turned the Berreta back towards Elektron. ‘Tell me what else you know.’
‘Strugatsky knew someone had hacked into his secure networks and stolen data related to the map, along with samples of the superconductors, so he hired Muto to find out who.’ Elektron pushed himself up onto one elbow, moving slowly in case it gave Dutch an excuse to shoot him. ‘Once he realised Wu had put you in the race, Dutch, he figured you were being sent here to retrieve the rest of them from under his nose.’
Dutch took a step back so she could train the Beretta on both of them. ‘That still doesn’t explain why you had one of Madame Muto’s death notices in your jacket.’
‘Listen,’ said Elektron, licking thin, greasy lips, ‘you’ve got the advantage here, and that’s cool. We’ve been friends a long time, and—’
She fired another shot into the tarmac near Elektron’s head and he scrabbled backwards, closer to Nat. ‘Okay, Okay!’ he said in a panic. ‘Muto came to me with an offer two days before the race.’
Two days? That meant Muto had discovered she’d be in the Devil’s Run after Wu decided to put her in it, but before he broke her out of jail. Hiro would have dug most of the information up for her.
‘To do what?’ Dutch asked. ‘Stop us getting to the superconductors first, or to kill me?’
‘…kind of both.’
‘Maybe Muto used your vendetta with her to cover up the real reason she wanted you dead,’ suggested Nat. ‘Because Strugatsky paid her to have you killed and keep us out of the race.’
Dutch had to admit it made sense, but something still niggled at her.
She moved closer to Elektron, poking him in the chest with the Beretta. ‘How did you manage to cut the fuel line in the Coupé?’
Elektron stared at her in utter confusion. ‘What?’
She poked the barrel hard against his chest. ‘Stop bullshitting me. How did you do it?’
‘For the love of God, Dutch, I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘Why should I believe you, when you were sneaking around our car before the time-trials?’
‘Okay, fine,’ Elektron admitted. ‘I meant to plant a tracker—something real simple that’d work as long as you didn’t go too deep into the d-field. But you found me before I had a chance to do it. But I don’t know anything about a fuel line!’
‘Of course he cut it,’ said Nat. ‘I don’t think one true word’s ever come out of his mouth.’
It occurred to Dutch that if Elektron had cut their fuel line, it would have been with the intention of doubling back and murdering them while they were stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Instead, he’d waited until now, which made no damn sense unless he was telling the truth, and somebody else had cut the fuel line. And if it was somebody else, that meant whoever had Muto’s final death notice was most likely in the race.
She pinched the skin between her eyes and massaged it. ‘I need to think about this.’
‘Dutch,’ Elektron said in a half-whisper, low enough Nat wouldn’t hear him. ‘You don’t need that guy—he’s been lying to you the whole time. But if you and me team up, maybe we—’
Dutch shot Elektron in the thigh. He let out a full-blooded scream that rapidly dissolved into animal-like whimpering, his face bloodless and quivering.
Dutch swung the Beretta back towards Nat. ‘He’s got one thing right—you lied to me about the expedition and Wu’s involvement in it.’
‘I had no part in that decision,’ he said. ‘For what it’s worth, I didn’t agree with it. But I had my orders from
